Snap Language

Understanding Simple and Complex Subjects

The Simple Subject

The simple subject is the main word or phrase that refers to the grammatical subject of the sentence, that is, the person, place, thing, or idea that the main verb agrees with. The simple subject is the “core” or main part of the subject.

The Complex Subject

Articles, adjectives, phrasal verbs, and even embedded clauses can be added to the simple subject. The resulting construction is called a complex subject.

The main verb in a sentence must agree with the simple subject.

Adding information to a simple subject turns it into a complex subject; however, the simple subject stays the same. (See the examples below.)

Identifying Singular and Plural Simple Subjects

The verb agrees with “peaches” (plural), “look” not “looks.”

Now look at this sentence

The bag of peaches is in the kitchen.

”The bag of peaches” is a complex subject, where “the bag” is the singular simple subject (not the peaches). The verb agrees with the simple subject “a bag," so it must be “is hanging,” not “are hanging.”

Misleading Complex Subjects

Sometimes we make mistakes in subject-verb agreement because we make the verb agree with the word closest to the verb. To avoid making this mistake, we must identify the simple subject and make the verb agree with it.

For example, in the sentence sentence below, you may be tempted to make the verb agree with “expenses” (or even “Americans”); however, when you find the actual simple subject in the sentence, you realize it is a singular subject (“the number” ).

The number of Americans who cannot afford medical expenses has increased in the last two decades.

The simple subject is “the number,” that is, you are expressing that “the number has increased” (not have).

Below are a few more examples,

The Gerund (Verb + ing) as the Subject

In English, you can use the gerund form of any verb (verb + -ing) to create a noun. “Learning," "taking,” and “eating" can all be used as noun; therefore, they can be used as the simple subject. The complex subject is highlighted and the simple subject is in bold in the following examples:

• Learning a language without the proper resources is very challenging. The simple subject is “learning.”
• Taking my dogs to the park on Saturdays is a fun activity. The simple subject is “taking.”
• Eating fruits and vegetables keeps you healthy. The simple subject is “learning.”

Notice that the verb agrees with the singular simple subjects (learning, taking, and eating) in these sentences.

”The Number” vs. “a Number of”

As we saw earlier, “the number” is a singular noun; however, the following sentence, uses “a number of” as an expression (similar to “a lot of”), which is part of a plural subject:

A large number of Americans have not voted in the last presidential elections.

You would not say “a lot of people has,” right? “A number” and “a lot” are similar expressions, and they build plural subjects such as “a number (or a lot) of people,” “a number of (or a lot of) cities," “a number of (or a lot of) solutions,” and so on.

Other “troublesome subjects” (e.g., using a number, a majority, or most of) can be problematic, particularly in formal English, where you may see more complex sentences compared to the sentences in everyday, spoken language. Depending on how they are used, they can make the simple subject singular or plural depending on the noun attached to them.

These troublesome subjects will be covered in separate lessons. (See “Related Lessons” below. ) In this lesson, we covered only the basics in complex and simple subjects; just be aware that it can get a bit more complex.

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